Disclosed herein is a vehicle seat, and particularly a vehicle seat including an elastic support member attached to a seat frame, which forms a frame, for supporting an occupant.
There is conventionally known a vehicle seat which includes a cushion frame formed by a frame-shaped body and an elastic spring (elastic support member) spanned between front and rear portions of the cushion frame for supporting an occupant. In addition, a hook member which is configured to be hooked to the cushion frame is attached to one end portion of the elastic spring, and a shape of the hook member is designed variously and elaborately, for example, see Japanese Patent Document JP2008-183107A (“the '107 Document”) and Japanese Patent Document JP2004-114932A (“the '932 Document”).
A vehicle seat disclosed in the '107 Document includes: a cushion frame which has side frames arranged at right and left sides, a pan frame connecting front portions of the side frames at the right and left sides, and a pipe frame connecting rear portions of the side frames at the right and left sides; and plural springs which are stretched between the pan frame and the pipe frame. A spring end engagement member (hook member) to be hooked to the pipe frame is provided at rear end portions of the springs. The spring end engagement member is configured by a U-shaped resin-made collar and a substantially U-shaped metal-made retainer that respectively extend along an outer periphery of the pipe frame. The metal-made retainer is attached to the outside of the resin-made collar. In addition, each of the rear end portions of the springs is interposed between and hooked to spring engagement pieces respectively provided at base and distal ends of the metal-made retainer in an extending direction of the metal-made retainer. As described above, the resin-made collar is provided between the metal-made retainer and the pipe frame; thereby, noises generated by a contact between metallic members can be avoided. Further, the resin-made collar is formed of a relatively simple U-shape, therefore not requiring a slide mold, for example in metallic molding. Therefore, mold manufacturing costs are slightly reduced.
Likewise in a vehicle seat disclosed in the '932 Document, a spring support member (hook member) to be hooked to a pipe frame is provided at a rear end portion of a spring for a cushion. The spring support member is formed of a resin material and configured by a frame fitting portion having a substantially U-shape extending along an outer periphery of the pipe frame and by a spring support portion formed so as to extend continuously from an end portion of the frame fitting portion and be folded. The resin-made spring support member as described above is adopted; thereby, the number of components is reduced and an increase in weight is inhibited.
In addition, in order to increase assembling rigidity of the hook member relative to the pipe frame, the hook member is attached to the pipe frame so as to surround the outer periphery of the pipe frame as in the '107 Document and the '932 Document. However, the hook member as in the '107 Document is formed by plural components of the metal-made retainer and the resin-made collar; therefore, entire manufacturing costs may increase. Further, the hook member as in the '932 Document is formed of resin-made components only but has a relatively complicated shape. Therefore, manufacturing costs of metallic molding may increase. Thus, it is required that the assembling rigidity of the hook member relative to the pipe frame is increased, and in addition, that manufacturing costs of the hook member are further reduced.